The free account is limited to a single user, while the premium account enabled unlimited bandwidth for up to five computers or mobile devices. TunnelBear doesn’t list the total number of servers on their site, but they do offer servers in 20 countries. Their Windows and Mac OS X client is based on OpenVPN and their mobile VPN system uses L2TP/IPsec. Unlike the previous two recommendations, however, TunnelBear has a firmer stance against file sharing activities and BitTorrent is blocked. Their speeds also aren’t quite as fast as the others, so you might experience a slower connection with TunnelBear.
There was a time when using a VPN required users to know about the built-in VPN client for Windows or universal open-source solutions such as OpenVPN. Nowadays, however, nearly every VPN provider has its own one-click client that gets you up and running in seconds. There are usually mobile apps as well to keep your Android or iOS device secure over public Wi-Fi.
Tunnel endpoints must be authenticated before secure VPN tunnels can be established. User-created remote-access VPNs may use passwords, biometrics, two-factor authentication or other cryptographic methods. Network-to-network tunnels often use passwords or digital certificates. They permanently store the key to allow the tunnel to establish automatically, without intervention from the administrator.
IPSec – Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) can be utilized with Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) or Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2). While it is not open source, it does do well in the performance category and can be used natively (without apps) on most operating systems. IPSec/IKEv2 may be the best protocol to use with some mobile devices (iOS), which do not work as well with OpenVPN.
Although the diminishing online privacy of users has been a long-running theme in the digital world, the recent Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal was the first exposure of our fragile privacy on a global level. It is in these circumstances that the search for best VPN services has become our answer to the continually shrinking privacy and security of the average netizen.
Though PIA doesn’t list its leadership on its website, that information isn’t hard to find. The founder, Andrew Lee, has been interviewed by Ars Technica; the CEO, Ted Kim, is also on the record; and privacy activist and Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge is listed as Head of Privacy on the company’s blog. PIA can also point to court records showing that when approached by law enforcement for detailed records, the company had nothing to provide. PIA boasts a huge network of servers and locations around the world, and though the PIA app isn’t as polished as those of some competitors, it is easy to use. Like our top pick, IVPN, its iOS app also added OpenVPN support in mid-2018. But in our speed tests, PIA was just okay, not great. When we averaged and ranked all of our speed tests, PIA came in fifth, behind our top picks as well as OVPN and ExpressVPN.
Consider a public Wi-Fi network, perhaps at a coffee shop or airport. Usually, you would connect without a second thought, but do you know who might be keeping tabs on the network traffic? Can you even be confident the hotspot is legitimate, or might it be operated by a criminal who's hunting for your personal data? Think about the passwords, banking details, credit card numbers, and just any private information that you send every time you go online.
Final Verdict – PIA is a reliable VPN service that only uses physical servers in its VPN network. It does not make any exaggerated claims of its qualities and clearly describes its policies and features. Moreover, the low price is another positive attribute of the VPN. In a nutshell, PIA is a VPN you can trust, though it is not an ideal VPN for torrenting.

Some VPN services provide a free trial, so take advantage of it. Make sure you are happy with what you signed up for, and take advantage of money-back guarantees if you're not. This is actually why we also recommend starting out with a short-term subscription—a week or a month—to really make sure you are happy. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited offers a one-week Vacation subscription, for example. Yes, you may get a discount by signing up for a year, but that's more money at stake should you realize the service doesn't meet your performance needs.

IPSec – Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) can be utilized with Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) or Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2). While it is not open source, it does do well in the performance category and can be used natively (without apps) on most operating systems. IPSec/IKEv2 may be the best protocol to use with some mobile devices (iOS), which do not work as well with OpenVPN.

TorGuard offers applications for every major platform, including Windows, macOS, and Android. And unlike our top pick, it also supports OpenVPN on ChromeOS. (Though TorGuard does offer an iOS app, it doesn’t natively support the OpenVPN protocol that allows for the easiest and most reliable secure connections.) Using these apps, you can manually select a server, click Connect, and not worry about the rest. But otherwise, the applications aren’t as refined or easy to use as IVPN’s. New users are likely to find themselves out of their depth when modifying anything but the most basic functions, such as auto-connecting at launch or minimizing the app.
To narrow the hundreds of VPN providers down to a manageable list, we first looked at reviews from dedicated sites like vpnMentor and TorrentFreak, research and recommendations from noncommercial sources such as That One Privacy Site and privacytools.io, and user experiences and tips on various subreddits and technology-focused websites like Lifehacker and Ars Technica. We settled on 32 VPNs that were repeatedly recommended. From there, we dug into the details of how each one handled issues from technology to subscriptions:
To verify that each service effectively hid our true IP address, we looked at a geolocation tool, DNS leaks, and IPv6 leaks. When connected to each service’s UK servers, we noted whether we could watch videos on BBC iPlayer, and using US servers we noted whether we could stream Netflix. We also visited the sites of Target, Yelp, Cloudflare, and Akamai to check whether our VPN IP addresses prevented us from accessing common sites that sometimes blacklist suspicious IP addresses.
The main reason to use a VPN is security - in theory, the data that travels across your VPN should be impossible for anybody else to intercept, so it can protect your online banking or confidential business communications - but there are other benefits too. VPNs can make it much harder for advertising to track you online, and they can overcome geography-specific blocks that prevent you from accessing some country-specific services such as online video.
When we last tested VPNs for macOS, TunnelBear was the fastest VPN on that platform. It had the best latency performance for both domestic and international testing, and the second-best upload performance in both tests, trailing Private internet Access in the domestic test and PureVPN in the international test. It had the second best international download test, but improved download speeds in the domestic test by 22.1 percent, the best overall showing for VPN download speeds on the Mac.
Some countries don't have the same protections for freedom of press, speech, and expression that most democratic countries have. In fact, some regimes resort to oppressive measures to monitor and take action against those they see as threats to the government. People who dare to stand up have to take extra precautions to protect their communications. Journalists and researchers also send messages containing data that some people may want to try very hard to intercept.
Tunneling protocols can operate in a point-to-point network topology that would theoretically not be considered as a VPN, because a VPN by definition is expected to support arbitrary and changing sets of network nodes. But since most router implementations support a software-defined tunnel interface, customer-provisioned VPNs often are simply defined tunnels running conventional routing protocols.

The country connections, meanwhile, matter most to those who want to spoof their location; however, non-spoofers should also make sure there are connections in their home country. If you live in Los Angeles, for example, and want access to American content, then you’ll need a VPN that provides U.S. connections. It won’t work to try and watch Amazon Prime Video over a Dutch VPN connection, because as far as Hulu’s concerned your computer is in the Netherlands.

Trust.Zone offers inconsistent speeds that vary considerably from one server to the other. Users might find it excellent for certain locations like the UK and Germany, but not fast enough for others. The privacy and security features of Trust.Zone are its strongest attributes, making it a great option for users seeking protection at acceptable speeds.
To be sent on a local area network (LAN) or WAN link, the IP datagram is finally encapsulated with a header and trailer for the data-link layer technology of the outgoing physical interface. For example, when IP datagrams are sent on an Ethernet interface, the IP datagram is encapsulated with an Ethernet header and trailer. When IP datagrams are sent over a point-to-point WAN link, such as an analog phone line or ISDN, the IP datagram is encapsulated with a PPP header and trailer.
In the most recent round of testing, we've also looked at how many virtual servers a given VPN company uses. A virtual server is just what it sounds like—a software-defined server running on server hardware that might have several virtual servers onboard. The thing about virtual servers is that they can be configured to appear as if they are in one country when they are actually being hosted somewhere else. That's an issue if you're especially concerned about where you web traffic is traveling. It's a bit worrisome to choose one location and discover you're actually connected somewhere else entirely.
To stress-test the VPN services, we do things a little differently. Instead of letting Ookla find the best (read: closest) test server, we select a specific test server in Anchorage, Alaska, for both the VPN testing and the baseline test. We then connect to a VPN server in Australia, and calculate a percent change between the two. Usually, this results in a noticeable impact on latency as well as download and upload speeds. It helps give a sense of how the VPN would perform when you're traveling abroad or using the VPN to spoof your location.
When we ran our recent Hive Five on VPN service providers, we heard from VPN providers begging to be included, angry CEOs who claimed their company was maliciously left out, and others accusing some of the contenders of illegal or unethical behavior. We took at look at the poll and the claims, and while there’s no definitive proof the poll was gamed, we decided to come up with our own top five, based on our own research rather than reader feedback, that are great whether you’re the privacy advocate, the student, or the downloader.
Many of the VPN users out there are always on a quest to search for ways to speed up VPN to experience a much more smoother internet surfing experience and to minimize load time. The easiest way to increase VPN speed and make it fast is to switch to a different VPN protocol with less encryption. See, different VPN protocols have different encryption levels. The fastest VPN protocol is PPTP, which is considered best for streaming purpose. But bear in mind that it’s the most less secure VPN protocol too. But if you want a VPN with fast speeds + security, then go for L2TP VPN protocol.
In compulsory tunneling, the client computer places a dial-up call to a tunneling-enabled NAS at the ISP. For example, a corporation might have contracted with an ISP to deploy a nationwide set of FEPs. These FEPs can establish tunnels across the Internet to a tunnel server connected to the organization’s private network, thus consolidating calls from geographically diverse locations into a single Internet connection at the organization network.
We believe privacy and security are fundamental human rights, so we also provide a free version of ProtonVPN to the public. Unlike other free VPNs, there are no catches. We don't serve ads or secretly sell your browsing history. ProtonVPN Free is subsidized by ProtonVPN paid users. If you would like to support online privacy, please consider upgrading to a paid plan for faster speeds and more features.
We also dove deeper into the desktop apps of the top-performing services. Great apps have automatic location selection, easy-to-use designs, and detailed but uncluttered settings panels. We set up each service’s Android app on a Samsung Galaxy S8 running Android 7.0 Nougat. We took into account how easy each one was to set up and connect, along with what options were available in the settings pane.
Hotspot Shield is the free version of the popular Hotspot Shield Premium VPN. You don’t need to input any information to download and begin using their app. Although the service is totally free, you will stumble upon ads only on the Android app. Other platforms are ads free. This is a major advantage, due to security aspects. Same as on the Premium version, Hotspot Shield committed to a zero log policy. They even confirmed their zero log policy by a 3rd party independent test.
This configuration is known as compulsory tunneling because the client is compelled to use the tunnel created by the FEP. Once the initial connection is made, all network traffic to and from the client is automatically sent through the tunnel. With compulsory tunneling, the client computer makes a single PPP connection. When a client dials into the NAS, a tunnel is created and all traffic is automatically routed through the tunnel. An FEP can be configured to tunnel all dial-up clients to a specific tunnel server. The FEP could also tunnel individual clients, based on the user name or destination.
If you don't know what Kodi is, you're not alone. However, an analysis of searches leading to our site reveals that a surprising number of you are, in fact looking for VPN that works with the mysterious Kodi. Dictionary.com defines Kodi as a possible misspelling of "Jodi," but PCMag analyst Ben Moore clarified for me that Kodi is "free, open-source software for managing your local collection of movies, television shows, music, and photos."
The concept of online streaming has taken the digital world to the seventh sky; now you don’t need to travel to the stadium to support your favorite team, it’s all possible within reach of few clicks. Even streaming content in other countries also become a lot easier using one of the best VPN services; streaming Netflix US is just a click away, no matter where you’re. The next thought might come which VPN is useful for streaming? Apparently one of the fastest VPN services would do wonders.
VyprVPN is one of the few providers that owns all of its own server infrastructure rather than just renting out space on someone else’s hardware. That means fast, consistent speeds that aren’t as affected by unrelated network traffic, with servers all over the world. We wouldn’t recommend torrenting on VyprVPN as it’s against the company’s policy, but it’s more than enough for streaming and gaming.
TunnelBear is the undisputed best free VPN service available today. It's a serious VPN that's serious about customer satisfaction, privacy and security. So the upside is that you're getting a VPN that works, and can be trusted not to hold loads of data on you and sell you out at the earliest opportunity! The downside is that the free tier of TunnelBear only gets you 500MB bandwidth each month. That means for many people having it always-on will leave you caught short well before the end of the month, and absolutely rules out using it to stream endless episodes of Rick and Morty on Netflix. The free VPN tear at TunnelBear is certainly designed as a gateway to the paid tier which offers unlimited data but will cost you real money. If you're going to pay for a VPN we'd suggest getting a premium one like Express, but if you're only interested in a free option then TunnelBear is the one for you unless you need loads of bandwidth.
Are you so used to your data traveling over Wi-Fi that you've stopped worrying about the security of that data—and about who else might be spying on it, or even stealing it for nefarious purposes? If so, you are—sadly—in the majority, and you ought to consider using a viritual private network, or VPN. In fact, when PCMag conducted a survey on VPN usage, we found that a dismal 71 percent of the 1,000 respondents had never used a VPN. Even among those who support net neutrality—who you might think would tend to be well informed on technology and privacy issues—only 45 percent had used a VPN.